Note 9 — WITH PEN AND PENCIL.
Reading edition
She thus writes respecting her removal from a peasant's house on Winter Hill to Cambridge, and her residence there:
"We passed three weeks in this place, and were then transferred to Cambridge, where we were lodged in one of the best houses of the place, which belonged to Royalists. Seven families, who were connected by relationship, or lived in great intimacy, had here farms, gardens, and splendid mansions, and not far off, orchards, and the buildings were at a quarter of a mile distant from each other. The owners had been in the habit of assembling every afternoon in one or another of these houses, and of diverting themselves with music or dancing, and lived in affluence, in good humor, and without care, until this unfortunate war at once dispersed them, and transformed all their houses into solitary abodes, except two, the proprietors of which were also soon obliged to make their escape....
"On the 3d of June, 1778, I gave a ball and supper, in celebration of my husband's birthday. I had invited all our generals and officers and Mr. and Mrs. Carter. General Burgoyne sent us an apology, after he had made us wait for him till eight o'clock. He had always some excuse for not visiting us, until he was about departing for England, when he came and made me many apologies, to which I made no other reply than that I should be extremely sorry if he had put himself to any inconvenience for our sake. The dance lasted long, and we had an excellent supper, to which more than eighty persons sat down. Our yard and garden were illuminated. The king's birth-day falling on the next day, it was resolved that the company should not separate before his Majesty's health was drank; which was done, with feelings of the liveliest attachment to his person and interests. Never, I believe, was 'God Save the King' sung with more enthusiasm, or with feelings more sincere. Our two eldest girls were brought into the room to see the illumination. We were all deeply moved, and proud to have the courage to display such sentiments in the midst of our enemies. Even Mr. Carter could not forbear participating in our enthusiasm." Mr. Carter was the son-in-law of General Schuyler. Remembering the kindness which she had received from that gentleman while in Albany, the baroness sought out Mr. and Mrs. Carter (who were living in Boston), on her arrival at Cambridge. "Mrs. Carter," she says, "resembled her parents in mildness and goodness of heart, but her husband was revengeful and false." The patriotic zeal of Mr. Carter had given rise to foolish stories respecting him. "They seemed to feel much friendship for us," says Madame De Riedesel; "though, at the same time, this wicked Mr. Carter, in consequence of General Howe's having burned several villages and small towns, suggested to his countrymen to cut off our generals' heads, to pickle them, and to put them in small barrels, and, as often as the English should again burn a village, to send them one of these barrels; but that cruelty was not adopted."—Letters and Memoire relating to the War of American Independence, by Madame De Riedesel..